Heavyweight boxing & mixed martial arts ratings and commentary

July 2013

July 07, 2013

Anderson Silva did a little too much clowning and not enough fighting and defending, and the price he paid was his UFC middleweight belt. Chris Weidman took advantage of Silva's taunting tactics, delivering a knockout blow as Silva pretended to be stunned by a previous punch.

Silva wasn't even really ahead in the fight at the time, having probably lost the first round. But he assumed he had taken Weidman's best shot—on the ground—and began his taunting soon thereafter. The end came just over a minute into the 2nd round.

Weidman's win will cause a big shakeup in next month's SportsRatings MMA Power Ratings, starting with the overall or "pound-for-pound" rankings, where Silva was formerly #2:

Projected August 1st Pound-for-pound MMA Rankings

JulyRank

AugRank

Fighter

WC

Rating

Rated Record

UFC 162 Results

1

1

Georges St. Pierre

WW

95.74

22-2-0

3

2

Jon Jones

LH

86.38

12-1-0

4

3

Cain Velasquez

HW

74.26

9-1-0

5

4

Benson Henderson

LW

72.07

11-1-0

25

5

Chris Weidman

MW

69.06

6-0-0

Beat #2 Anderson Silva

2

6

Anderson Silva

MW

61.91

30-5-0

Lost to #25 Chris Weidman

6

7

Fabricio Werdum

HW

55.66

16-5-1

7

8

Lyoto Machida

LH

53.96

16-3-0

8

9

Daniel Cormier

HW

53.15

9-0-0

9

10

Johny Hendricks

WW

49.29

11-1-0

10

11

Jose Aldo

FW

47.30

14-1-0

Weidman (now 10-0-0 overall, 6-0-0 in rated fights) will take a huge jump from #25 to #5, one spot ahead of Silva, who falls to #6 with his 5th career loss.

And of course, Silva also loses the top Middleweight spot to Weidman, though he only falls to #2. The two fighters are miles ahead of the rest of the field, as Silva was before the bout.

Middleweight - 185 lb. limit - August 1st projection

JulyRank

AugRank

Fighter

WC

Rating

Rated Record

UFC 162 Results

3

1

Chris Weidman

MW

69.06

6-0-0

Beat #1 Anderson Silva

1

2

Anderson Silva

MW

61.91

30-5-0

Lost to #3 Chris Weidman

2

3

Vitor Belfort

MW

30.76

22-10-0

4

4

Ronaldo Souza

MW

25.64

13-2-0

5

5

Costas Philippou

MW

25.02

5-1-0

6

6

Yushin Okami

MW

24.77

19-6-0

7

7

Tarec Saffiedine

MW

24.00

4-1-0

13

8

Mark Munoz

MW

23.72

8-2-0

Beat #11 Tim Boetsch

8

9

Alexander Shlemenko

MW

23.15

14-2-0

9

10

Ronny Markes

MW

21.55

3-0-0

Mark Munoz's impressive win should put him back in the top 10 in the division. If Silva's post-fight vow to not rematch Weidman or fight for the belt again is true (we'll see what Dana White thinks of that), then Vitor Belfort might be Weidman's next opponent (licensing issues withstanding).

In any case, the middleweight division—probably the weakest and least competitive in the UFC—just got a whole lot more interesting.